Metacritic reviews

The success of Stephen Frears’ film Chéri begins with its casting. Michelle Pfeiffer, as Lea de Lonval, is still a great beauty.

Actors blossom under Frears' direction. There is no false moment or off-key note in this movie.

A respectable and satisfying historical romantic melodrama.

With Pfeiffer, 50, radiating uncommon beauty, grace and feeling, Frears uncovers a fragile story's grieving heart.

The film is a sumptuous, handsome portrait of a woman poised fearfully on the brink of decline, yet too proud to grab at rescue.

Like a passable bottle of champagne, Cheri fizzes and slides down quite easily but lacks real body and doesn't really hit the spot.

Chéri never fulfills its emotional promise.

This glimpse into a decadent era has its charms, but they’re mostly visual. While Pfeiffer and Friend perform well, the script is tonally confused and lacks edge.

Michelle Pfeiffer is brittle in a way that's not especially French, but she's poignant and very lovely. Rupert Friend, on the other hand, is difficult to warm up to, especially with his features hidden behind all that hair. It's not a good sign when you have to take the movie's word for it that the lovers at its center are really, really into each other.

Frears and Hampton's missteps begin immediately, with the director providing pinched narration as he recounts, over so many cartes de visite, the histories of other famous ladies who made a handsome living on their backs.